Draw me a hamster with an elephant's body driving a Lamborghini

Garry Parsons describes how he approaches visiting schools to talk about his work as an illustrator, gives some tips on how to do it, and asks two teachers why they feel author and illustrator visits are beneficial to pupils.

One of the surprises of working as an illustrator in children’s publishing was being asked to take part in live events. My first picture book, Billy’s Bucket by Kes Gray, won three awards during the first year of its publication and, as the illustrator, I was expected to speak publicly. Being a fairly private person, this was very daunting at first and, looking back, I’m sure in those first few years my events were probably pretty awful. But experience is a great teacher and I have learnt a lot about speaking in public and adapted my repertoire to hopefully enthuse and inspire children to pick up a pencil or read a book.

This Friday I visited a school in South London, my first of the year, and, with the thought of a busy World Book Week close on the horizon, I was keen to start the season off with a real cracker. 

Tip 1: Arrive in plenty of time.

With my mild anxiety about being late dealt with by arriving at the school half an hour early, I was greeted enthusiastically by the teacher I had been organizing the event with, and led around the school to where my workshops would be taking place during the day, and to the hall for the assembly. 

Tip 2: Set up your wares before the kids arrive.

I like to be drawing as the children are filing into the hall. You can hear the muffled chatter of excitement and murmurs of “Who?” “What?” “How?” and “Wow!” 

Children are gripped by live drawing, so I like to make the most of the flip chart paper.

Tip 3: Get everyone’s attention straight away. 

I like to do this by asking a question immediately. “Does anyone here like to draw?” I ask, and usually around 80% of hands go up.

I go on to tell them that there are three things that an illustrator needs, we quickly work out between us what these might be, and I draw these on the flip chart with fast strokes of a fat marker. Children love to interact with moans and laughter when I inform them that my pencil is in love with someone but it’s not me! 

We go through the importance of PRACTICE by unravelling a long concertina sketchbook, and the abstract notion of using your IMAGINATION by drawing a brave volunteer’s portrait. But I get it ‘wrong’ under the influence of my vivid imagination, which seemingly has a mind of its own and might add an elephant’s trunk, crazy oversized hair or giant ears to the drawing. This brings on peels of laughter.

By this point I usually feel I have the room engaged, but the time has flown by and I need to wrap it up with a five minute Q&A or, if it’s a longer assembly, I might continue with ‘Challenge the Illustrator,’ where I tell the children I can draw anything and they give me three random elements to put together in two minutes, a gorilla on a unicycle in Wembley Stadium. Either way, my intention is to have lit a fuse of enthusiasm that will carry me and the students into a series of workshops for the rest of the day.

In the workshops I explain the process of illustration, from text to final artwork, and how a picture book is made. I use examples of my work to show each of the stages and emphasise how important it is to keep the first stages fluid and not to be concerned about perfection and getting things right. That's where the romance of the pencil and the rubber comes in.

So how did the day in South London go? 

Well, it was a marvellous day with responsive children and enthusiastic and welcoming staff, it felt great and everyone seemed happy. 

This is what they said...

We had a very exciting visit from illustrator Garry Parsons. He amazed the children in an assembly with his illustration skills and quick imagination! His inspirational assembly and workshops had children in awe with a lot of spontaneous clapping.

But how do I know that schools really do get something out of author and illustrator visits? Is it worth schools spending scarce resources this way? 

I asked two experienced teachers from schools in Kent to get an inside point of view on why author and illustrator visits might be of benefit to them and their pupils and how they know a visit may have had an effect.

Mrs Bryant told me:

A visitor to your school can give pupils a fresh engagement with a subject, whether that is reading, writing or drawing, or even something less obvious like bee keeping or gymnastics. It can show children the aspect that gives education a purpose and gives them a reason for going to school. Authors and illustrators can be both inspirational and aspirational for pupils. 

Visits broaden views and often give a purposeful link to a unit of work that the pupils might be studying in class at that time or later, and we can ask questions such as “Would you like to do this as a job?” 

Miss Neech told me:

Meeting an author or illustrator in real life at your school brings in a reality, an actual person that children can directly engage with. And this is a shared experience for everyone in the school, including the teachers, and every school member can be uplifted by an inspiring speaker. When schools are required to focus on the academic, having a creative person, such as an illustrator or a writer, visiting the school is beneficial, because society is about creative thinking and problem solving. Not celebrating creativity would be a mistake!

For me, meeting the children is wonderful and I thoroughly enjoy visiting schools and having the opportunity to enthuse children about drawing and reading and about books. 

This aspect of being an illustrator has become a pleasure I had never considered when I started on the art work for Billy’s Bucket all those years ago. While the benefits of authors and illustrators visiting schools might be hard to measure from my perspective, I am convinced that they have a real impact because of the feedback from teachers, the fun that I can see the children have and, more than anything, the brilliant thank you letters I sometimes receive a few weeks later.

Garry Parsons is a children's book illustrator.


You can see more of my illustration for children's books on my website by clicking here. Get in touch to book Garry to visit your school, library or festival.

Follow me on twitter @icandrawdinos

Finding and Finessing a Folktale by Chitra Soundar

I’ve started teaching a course on picture books and as I break down the basics to other writers, I realised that I’m articulating my own understanding. My writing, especially in the medium of picture books, comes from my lifelong love of picture books, from this moment, I was handed this book when I was 7.

I read picture books and comics as much as I can, growing up, and when I started writing way back in 2003. I still read way too many picture books and often most ideas present themselves to me in 12 spreads.

Along with this love for picture books, I’m also a storyteller. I think I told stories even when I was four and the love for oral storytelling never really left me even when I was working in the corporate world.

Here is my process of how I search, find and finesse a folktale for a modern audience.

Finding a story: I usually choose a story from my own culture or a trickster tale. I read quite a few stories from collections I’ve accumulated over the years to identify which story connects with me. I need to get the “theme” of the story and I want to be able to see the story in scenes, rather than a quick joke.

If I do choose a story that is not from a culture I’m familiar with, I would check if there are enough independent “first-hand” sources I can rely on for accuracy of representation. I’d want to know if this story has been retold or adapted or written about by people who are native to that culture and what do they think of it. Often folktales have hidden allegory and meaning that will work at a different level than the “story” itself and I might inadvertently cause hurt or offence to people by re-telling this story.

Check out a research paper on this here. 

My search takes me into libraries, Internet archives of ancient texts and research notes because modern retellings or “collections” might be derivative and I would try and find as many “native” sources I can.

Evaluating for a Modern Audience: There are many funny stories in Aesop fables or Panchatantra or our epics that might not be suitable for today’s children. Many of these stories are true to their time and geography. So a story about “girls knowing their place” or “a cruel stepmother” or "old women are witches" are not only inappropriate but also harmful for today’s child.

So I read and understand the underlying concepts of each of these folktales and think about whether the protagonist and the events of the story are telling a tale suitable for today and beyond. While we can’t go back and erase our past, or justify some of the notions, the least we could do is not to propagate unhelpful stereotypes – whether it’s about gender, age, sexual orientation or cultures.

Read about some of the stereotypes challenged in last year's IBBY conference.

Adapting the Story: Now comes the techniques of writing a picture book. I need to know enough about the story to be able to adapt it. As I said before, I would try and find as many variants of the story I can. I’ll try and find archives with original text or translations.

Having absorbed the story, these are my techniques to adapt the story:

a)    Understanding its spine – what’s the story really about? What’s the message and essence of the story? In this, oral storytelling and adapting have the same goal. I normally break down a story into 10 simple scenes or sentences. Or 5 things I need to remember and then distill it into “a message”. Once I know this, I can then adapt the story and still be able to keep the essence.

b)    Who are the characters? Especially when I’m working with trickster tales, the characters in the story are crucial for the logic of the story to work. Like Stork and the Fox in Aesop Fables, or the Crocodile and the Monkey in Panchatantra. The characteristics and the “character” – who is evil, who is tricking whom, who is symbolised as clever – all of that will need to be worked out. Often keeping the same characters as per the original story is sufficient. Sometimes I’d want to change it. When changing the characters, I’ve to make sure that the “symbolic” nature of their characters will still work.          

It’s important to know the cultural archetypes here. In some cultures some animals and birds are clever / evil / cunning and if I need to credit the culture, then using an alternate one or the wrong one will take away the authenticity.

c)     What’s the punch line and how do I get there? I’ll need to understand what are the relevant scenes that need to have happened for the punch line to work. But at the same time, we need 12 scenes in the picture book that are different from each other.

Here’s where research pays off – knowing the geography of the story, knowing the other characters will help.

Also as a storyteller, the embellishing happens here – adding more scenes to show the allegory or the true nature of the characters will help a child reader understand the punch line better.

d)    Word count and other practical considerations: Most modern picture books are under 400 words with exceptions of course. I need to be able to tell the 12 scenes with enough happening between the scenes and still keeping the word count down.

The other thing I’ll think about is viewpoint – which character is telling the story? Am I going to use the voice of a storyteller? Is my language going to be modern or folktale-ish? Is this story going to be billed as a re-telling or an adaptation?

e)    Adapting vs Retelling – Whether it’s the Gruffalo or the True story of the Three Little Pigs, or my own A Jar of Picklesand a Pinch of Justice or Pattan’s Pumpkin – the story can be hidden under a completely new setting, cast of characters and a modern retelling. 

         Whether or not the reader knows the underlying story, it will still be fun for them. Of course,               in all of my adaptations, I’ve made it clear that I’ve adapted traditional tales. Sometimes a story            is in folk-legend widely that you might not need to mention it.

For those who are starting out to write picture books and grappling with “where do I get ideas?”, adapting folktales can be a wonderful exercise in research, structure and plotting. Folk tales have plots that have worked for hundreds of years and can be useful in showing us how to construct a regaling tale.

If you enjoyed reading this post, do share your favourite folktale adaptations in the comments.

Chitra Soundar is the author of many picture books and retellings. Her latest book is an original story of two polar bear cubs discovering the world. Find out more about You’re Snug with Me, illustrated by Poonam Mistry and published by Lantana Publishing here.